In IP telecom network (IPTN) technologies, effective management and reasonable use of IP network resources enable an IP network to bear a service satisfying a telecom operation demand. For example, a Resource Manager (RM) of a bearer control layer sends a Quality of Service (QoS) control command to an Edge Router (ER) of a bearer layer to perform tasks of stream classification, and label stack pushing.
A typical application model of the existing IPTN technologies is illustrated in FIG. 1. In FIG. 1, upon a call from a user, a call proxy sends a request for a required QoS resource to an RM, the RM selects a link and sends a stream setup message to an ER, and the ER sets up a stream successfully, resulting in a success of the call from the user. Upon the user hangs up, the call proxy instructs the RM to release the QoS resource, and the RM instructs the ER to delete corresponding information.
A QoS control command sent from the RM may be referred as a stream. The RM sends a stream to the ER or deletes a stream on the ER in response to a service control demand, and the ER adds or deletes a stream record on the ER by processing a command from the RM. Thus, a deviation may readily occur between stream records of the RM and the ER. In order to ensure normal operation of a service, stream records of the RM and stream records of the ER need to be kept in consistency and the stream record is subject to the stream records in the RM. However, stream table entries of the RM and ER may be inconsistent because a resource cannot be released after a stream becomes invalid at either of them due to abnormal communication between them or other reasons, so that the resource may be hung. If the resource hanging fails to be corrected timely, the RM may not receive any proper response from the ER to a sent stream and the ER may not release invalid resource. Accumulation of table entries inconsistencies between the RM and the ER may affect normal use of the IP bearer service.
In order to ensure consistency between stream records of the RM and the ER, stream table entries of the RM and the ER are checked for consistency and then deleting by the RM all streams on the ER at an appropriate time and resending a stream record to the ER so as to ensure consistency between the stream records of the RM and the stream records of the ER. The above check can be initiated periodically or by the RM on its own initiative.
This approach art has the following drawback.
When the RM deletes all streams on the ER at an appropriate time, services carried in the streams may be interrupted, and in order to avoid the service interruption, the deletion operation in this method can be executed only at a time when a relatively small number of services are present.
A second approach includes third party queries about a stream table entry of the ER and instructs the RM to delete an unwanted stream so as to ensure consistency between the stream records of the RM and the stream records of the ER.
This second approach has the following drawbacks.
An additional interface has to be added on the RM and the ER, which may complicate the operations of keeping stream consistency. This technical solution may not be applicable in a large scale application of services and also has the drawbacks of being error-prone, and inefficient.